East of Loch Treig

By this stage our “trip to Skye” had turned into a chase round any Munros in the Fort William area that none of us had already climbed. In fact, this gave us surprisingly few options, especially as we also had a time constraint - Howard and I had to get back to Edinburgh by 7.30pm at the latest, as Howard had an evening plane to catch. The obvious choice was to climb Stob Coire Sgriodain and Chno Dearg to the east of Loch Treig, and we managed to be up, packed and away from the hostel at Onich by 8.30am, with the weather at that point looking unpromisingly dull. We reached Fersit to find most of the hills in this area clear, and got going by about ten to ten.

Passing through the teeming metropolis of Fersit we soon found some sort of path up the hillside that appeared to be going where we wanted and which, though quite boggy, was reasonably distinct. At our first major halt I managed to forget my stick and had to run back from some way on to get it.

Meanwhile Alasdair and Howard had pressed on to find a way up on the east side of the ridge of Stob Coire Sgriodain which avoided the first craggy shoulder of Sron na Gàrbh-bheinne, reaching the ridge crest just beyond it.

From there the ridge walk up to the summit of Stob Coire Sgriodain and on to the south-east Top was very pleasant. There were superb views of the two “Stobs” on the other side of Loch Treig and the Grey Corries beyond, all of which had a generous sprinkling of snow patches.

The view down Loch Treig

Stob Coire Easain, Stob a

Quartz-themed cairn at the summit of Stob Coire Sgriodain

We had a lunch stop not far beyond the south-east Top then pushed on past the lochan at the bealach, heading more or less straight for Meall Garbh, the southern Top of Chno Dearg. This was an easy stroll on moss and stony ground.

From Meall Garbh we had excellent views of the Mamores and Glen Coe. We then turned about and skirted around the top of the steep southern corrie of Chno Dearg, making a point of trudging across an extensive snow patch at one point.

Finally more easy slopes took us to the summit. This was almost certainly going to be my last Munro for more than twelve months, and Alasdair and Howard similarly weren’t expecting to be up again for some time, so the moment was tinged with a little sadness. Nevertheless the views were superb.

It was still cloudy but the hills were pretty much all clear, and from the top of the large cairn there was an impressive 360° panorama taking in what we estimated to be perhaps a hundred Munros. There were all the ones we’d already seen well, together with Creag Meagaidh, the hills south of Loch Laggan, Schiehallion (of course), Ben Lawers, the Crianlarich Hills, and northwards too, as far as Glen Shiel and Glen Affric.

The wind was hardly blowing and we could have sat there a while, but alas, we had the old time pressure on. It was now around 3 o’clock and we hoped to be off down the road by about 4.30.

So we set off down a vague path, which we lost almost immediately, tramping down across country instead. The slopes were boggy but gentle enough to make good time, until we joined the path we had come up by not far from our starting point at Fersit. It was here that I came upon a ewe with two lambs and decided to try to get a picture for Ailsa and Kirsty - I’d seen lots of lambs over the previous week but never had a chance for a picture. This one obligingly stayed around my feet while it’s mother ran off in terror! We got back to the car and van at ten to four, took some time to get boots off, luggage sorted, etc, then Howard and I said goodbye to Alasdair and set out for Edinburgh. And so my 2005 Munroing season came to a close.